Advanced Parallel Tracing with Active Probe Parallel

The new TASKING Active Probe Par­al­lel offers a com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion for debug­ging a vari­ety of micro­con­troller archi­tec­tures. As the name sug­gests, Active Probe Par­al­lel sup­ports par­al­lel trac­ing among all other Debug­ging and Trac­ing pro­to­cols.

One of the key advan­tages of par­al­lel trace is that mul­ti­ple bits of data are trans­mit­ted simul­ta­ne­ous­ly across mul­ti­ple wires, which:

  • Allows high­er data through­put with­out requir­ing a very high clock speed
  • Result in lower laten­cy com­pared to ser­i­al inter­faces and can be an advan­tage in time-crit­i­cal appli­ca­tions where even small delays are sig­nif­i­cant

Key Components and Connectivity

The Active Probe Par­al­lel con­nects to the iC7max Blue­Box Hard­ware Debug­ger via an FNet cable. This setup ensures a high-speed and reli­able con­nec­tion for advanced debug­ging, ana­lyz­ing, and test­ing.

Active Probe Par­al­lel sup­ports the fol­low­ing pro­to­cols:

  • Debug Pro­to­cols:
    • Joint Test Action Group (JTAG)
    • Arm Ser­i­al Wire Debug (SWD)
    • RH850 Low Pin-Count Debug (LPD)
  • Trace Pro­to­cols:
    • Soft­ware Trace
    • Par­al­lel Trace
    • On-chip trace buffers
    • Sin­gle Wire Out­put (SWO)

·       Its com­pact design enables con­nec­tions to var­i­ous tar­get micro­con­trollers in tight spaces, with a con­nec­tion range extend­ing up to 10 meters from the iC7max Blue­Box Hard­ware Debug­ger. 

To con­nect the Active Probe Par­al­lel to dif­fer­ent tar­get micro­con­trollers, spe­cif­ic adapters are required. These include:

  • Arm Mic­tor 38-Pin Adapter
  • Arm Core­Sight 20-pin Adapter
  • MPC5xxx Nexus 38-pin Adapter

For non-stan­dard pinouts, con­vert­ers are avail­able to ensure com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the Active Probe Adapter.

Active probe parallel arm coresight adapter white back
Active Probe Par­al­lel con­nect­ed to the iC7max via Arm Core­Sight Debug Adapter

 

Getting started with Active Probe Parallel

Start­ing with new soft­ware and tools can be chal­leng­ing. TASKING pro­vides a series of Get­ting start­ed tuto­ri­als to help you get up to speed with the Debug, Test, and Ana­lyze Tools. 

These tuto­ri­als guide you through the entire process, from instal­la­tion to start­ing your first debug ses­sion, ensur­ing a smooth tran­si­tion into using Active Probe Par­al­lel for your develop­ment needs, for exam­ple:

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